New York City Hackers is an independent documentary by Stig-Lennart
Sorensen released in the year 2000. Most of the filming occurs in in New
York at the H2K conference, 2600 meeting and an Off the Hook radio
show. There is also a coverage of the original MIT hackers from the TMRC
club.
The documentary explores the hacker culture by distinguishing
computer hackers from common criminals. In the very beginning the viewer
is presented with a segment from Off the Hook radio show where Emmanuel
Goldstein, the show’s host, uses Kevin Mitnick as an example of a
hacker distinct from people perpetrating destructive denial of service
(DoS) attacks against websites. Not everybody with access to tools and
resources to pull off a successful DoS attack is a hacker, Emmanuel
observes. Cheshire Catalyst describes hacking as a process of hacking
away at a keyboard until computer does what you want it to do. He also
contrasts true hackers with sensationalized “14 year olds twerps who
crack into computers” also described as crackers.
